Seth Saavedra
This post originally appeared here.
Police in Stillwater, Oklahoma, arrested Alberto Morejon on a charge of “lewd proposals to a minor.” Morejon is an 8th grade teacher at Stillwater Junior High and was one of the organizers of the statewide teacher walkout in 2018.
In a press release with few details, police say they were contacted by the parent last week “regarding their minor child’s relationship with a former teacher” and that “the suspect was contacting the victim through electronic means.”
Morejon became one of the faces of the #RedforEd movement through the creation of the “Oklahoma Teacher Walkout — The Time Is Now!” Facebook page that assembled about 70,000 members at the height of its popularity. He was featured in many major news stories about the strike.
He was a lot more effective organizing a walkout than bringing it to a successful conclusion, as I noted in this April 18, 2018 story:
‘We teachers started this movement. OK? And we will be the ones to end it,’ Alberto Morejon, the leader of one of those groups, told protesters at the capitol after the OEA announcement. They said they would use the weekend ‘to determine exactly what their demands are.’
‘What do we feel like the finish line is? I think most people would agree that pushing any more of a teacher raise and support staff raise is probably not a good idea,’ said Morejon. ‘We need to come up with a magic number. What would be the magic number to end this walkout?’
I don’t think it is overly critical to point out that determining what your demands are and looking for a magic number two weeks into a strike is not a formula for a successful labor action.
Morejon is not, and evidently has never been, a member of the state’s teachers union, the Oklahoma Education Association. Therefore, he will have to make his own legal arrangements.
This, however, has not stopped the local NEA chapter from promptly disavowing him:
Asked her reaction on Wednesday, the president of the local bargaining unit that organized Tulsa teacher participation in the walkout said she had never met Morejon.
‘As an educator for 34 years, nothing is more important than the well-being of our students. Mr. Morejon was a self-appointed agitator — not part of any formal organization — and was highly critical of his fellow educators and our efforts during the walkout,’ said Patti Ferguson-Palmer, president of the Tulsa Classroom Teachers Association.
